Bungler-- Count me among those who are struggling to figure out the Partnership-by-indication puzzle SK seemed to throw on the table when he said in CC that his partnering priority was to do deals that put Bavi into late stage trials in breast and liver.
The only thing I've come up with is this: The next decade of oncology will not be so much about Bavi + chemo, but rather Bavi plus downstream immune checkpoint drugs. As downstream immunotherapy clinical trials branch out from melanoma and lung to other indications, and it become clear that Bavi can work wonders in many combo situations with different downstream checkpoints. maybe the new licensing strategy is really about Partnership-by-Checkpoint, not Partnership-by-Indication.
In other words, the Company gives BMS a non-exclusive license for all combos of Bavi + CTLA-4 on condition that BMS not only pays large amounts as milestones are achieved, but also agrees to fund a Phase II/III trial of Bavi + CTLA4 in HER- breast cancer.
Then they do this again with Merck and Roche or anyone else who has a promising downstream checkpoint that has proven to work well with Bavi in animal models.
Each license agreement would give PPHM a veto right to prevent Bavi from being used in combo with the downstream checkpoint in a clinical trial that PPHM did not approve. So for example, if the Company never allowed BMS to do a lung cancer clinical trial with Bavi + CTLA4, this market would be preserved to PPHM. It's hard to imagine any oncologist Doc. would dare on his own to experiment with such an untested combination. Thus Bavi + Docetaxel could still become the SOC in NSCLC 2-3 years from now. When the time is right and BPs have paid enough, I'm sure the Company would allow a trial of Bavi + Doce + PD-1.
This is purely my guess as to how the new multi-party, non-exclusive licensing strategy could work. Comments are invited.
